Late At Night
by Shubatra
Summary: Terra wakes from his sleep when he hears an intruder, but he isn't expecting the one he got. Instead of fighting, he has to help a confused and lost child face his own inner demons. Terra and Ven, how their brotherhood got started. Slight signs of PTSD.


**Notes:** I've been out of the fanfic game for awhile, but story ideas wouldn't leave me alone anymore. Not that they ever really _did_, but they've been really bad lately. So, I registered my fourth ff.n account - because after five years, going back to the last one seemed kind of pointless, y'know?

This story and several, several others I'm debating writing are pretty much me developing backstory headcanon for Ven, who's quickly become my favorite character in Kingdom Hearts, and one of my favorites overall. I adore characters that have close family ties, or pseudo-family in this case, and exploring the bonds those ties bring. So, what better way to celebrate my return to fanfiction with a story that was _supposed_ to be a thousand-word drabble and turned into...something completely different, featuring two who are as close as brothers, about how they started walking down that path. Also, I suck at titles.

Enjoy, everyone, and I'll be seeing you all again soon :)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A wooden creaking and a door slamming somewhere roused Terra from what had been a mostly undisturbed night of sleep. It wasn't an infrequent sound, even in the sparsely populated castle; Master Eraqus was known to stay up 'til all hours reading or researching bits of esoteric lore, new training methods, anything that crossed his mind during the day. His apprentice, however, had no idea how the much older man managed to survive on less sleep than a typical songbird: he was one of those people that needed a solid eight hours every night in as close to one go as he could get, or he would be grumpy until noon the next day. Aqua had teased him about it for years, sometimes even the Master adding in a word or two about it, but nothing Terra tried could break him of his morning grouchiness if his sleep had been interrupted.

And it seemed like this night was one of those nights, because after a sold five minutes of tossing and turning and trying to get back into something that resembled a comfortable position, Terra was more awake than ever and starting to regret having chosen the room along the main hall for what had to be at least the two hundredth time. With a groan, he pushed himself into a sitting position, trying to keep his flyaway hair out of his face, then staggered his feet and over to his desk. If he was going to be awake, at the very least he could get some of that reading done the Master had wanted... and that he'd fallen asleep over before...

The creaking sounded again, and the source registered at last in his still sleep-fogged brain: one of the windows over the desk was unlatched, swinging on its hinges and making the muffled noise with every breeze that slipped through. _Why is that open? I could've sworn I closed that before I got in bed..._ With a shrug, Terra reached up to secure the window once more, but an even more muffled noise caught his attention as his hands came to rest upon the frame: a soft rush, like a small gasp, behind him. Terra paused in his movements, widening his senses as the Master was trying to teach him, and he could almost believe there was something alive-

He whirled, Keyblade appearing in his hand as he stared at the door, but it was firmly shut and nothing stirred in the shadows around it. His eyes roamed the room, noting each and every little thing moving, the leaf of a plant that stirred in the breeze from the still-open window, the shadow of a small flying creature outside. For a long time he stood there, anticipating an attack that more and more looked to just be a figment of his imagination, when he spotted something out of the corner of his eyes, the blankets on his bed sliding down just a little, and reaching too close to the floor.

Terra grinned. _Gotcha._

His feet were large, still too large for his body even with the growth spurts he'd been going through for the past year and a half, but he was more than capable of moving silently when he had the opportunity to prepare for it. Terra took a step, then another, not making a sound as he approached the bed, noticing the blankets move down a little more as something was definitely trying to hide itself from view. They were pulled, tugged, and pinched a little at a time, centimeter by centimeter, whatever was under there trying not to give itself away and not realizing it already had. He stopped barely a foot from the bed, watching the space that should have been unobstructed to the floor, waiting to spring. And as soon as the blankets stopped shifting, he did, reaching out to grab them in a solid fist and yank them away, swinging his Keyblade with a yell at whatever monster had dared to invade their home-

-only to be answered by a much higher, louder, and incredibly more frightened yell as the "monster" jerked away from the edge of the bed, clamoring to get back into the safe space next to the wall, away from Terra's bulk and the weapon he barely managed to pull back in time to keep from needlessly destroying his bed.

"_Ven_?" Terra exhaled on a heavy breath, panting a little himself. Not that he would ever admit it, but the other boy's yell had nearly given him a heart attack as well. "What're you doing under there?"

"S...Sorry..." came all the answer he was going to get. Ventus had been with them for less than two weeks - well, with them and _awake_ for less than two weeks - and he seemed to be as tentative and fragile as a snowflake. Master Xehanort had said that something had scarred the boy's heart badly when he'd left him to Master Eraqus' care, but whatever information he had hadn't been communicated to a pair of lowly apprentices. When he was awake, concentrating on something like the tests the Master was giving him to determine how far along he was in his academic studies, those were the times Ventus almost seemed like a real kid. When he was left on his own, he seemed to disappear like a breeze, running off around corners when he heard footsteps, only answering direct questions and not holding up his end of the conversation when he couldn't avoid the person seeking him out. Something _had_ scarred him badly, because all three inhabitants of the castle could tell that this state was not natural for the yellow-haired eleven-year-old, but Terra's patience for it was wearing out faster than the Master's or Aqua's. They'd all been worried about him while he slept, recovering from whatever happened to him, visiting him often and wanting to be there when he woke up, but since that moment it almost seemed like they'd gained a ghost instead of another apprentice. Indeed, Terra couldn't remember seeing Ven show he could fight, let alone produce a Keyblade. The other two hadn't mentioned it either. Terra was beginning to wonder if the boy even had the potential, because he seemed to shake and shrink any time he saw one.

Just as he was doing at that moment. A light gasp reached his ears along with another bump, and Terra dismissed his Keyblade with another sigh. With any luck, Aqua and the Master hadn't heard their little disturbance, and he could get Ven back to his room before anything else went wrong. "I put it away, it's okay. Will you come out now?"

There was silence for a moment, then a moment more, and finally Terra could hear the sounds of fabric sliding over the wood floor as Ven pulled himself out. His feet came first, and Terra made a mental note to sweep under there better since Ven's socks were covered in dust bunnies, followed by the rest of him in the hand-me-down pajamas Eraqus had kept from when Terra had been around the same age, his expression one of resignation tempered by fear not quite hidden away and fixed firmly on the floor. The pajamas were a bit large on the boy, giving him even more of a frightened look as his clothing seemed to be on the verge of swallowing him alive. Terra could sense the familiar mix of pity, impatience, and remorse settle on him as he watched the blond sit next to the bed and not speak - pity for what got him to that state, impatience with him for not trying to get out of it, and remorse for being churlish enough to think such things about a boy who'd obviously been through a lot and didn't need to have some insensitive clod go trampling all over him. He raised a hand to rub his face, trying to hide the emotional mix he was going through himself, and repeated his question. "What were you doing under there?"

It was several moments before Ven spoke, but he finally did, though his voice was still soft and he didn't look up. "...I had... another nightmare."

That wasn't too surprising; he'd been having one about every other night since waking from his coma, though Terra had managed to sleep through most of them as their rooms were fairly far apart. Master Eraqus had taken the brunt of that problem when Ven woke up screaming, Aqua occasionally joining as well. Terra simply didn't know how to comfort and settle Ven down, and so felt like he would be worse than in the way if he tried to help with them. But this time, for some reason, Ven had sought refuge in his room and not drawn the Master's attention - if he was waking up from them and not waking up screaming, that was probably progress, right? Maybe if he could just get him to talk about it...

"What was it about?" he asked, lowering himself down to a seat on the floor. Even he knew that being so much taller than another person was intimidating, and not likely to make the younger boy spill his guts.

"It was..." Terra considered it progress that Ven at least started speaking after his question, even if he did trail off again. The younger boy brushed the tips of his fingers against the floor, feeling the wood grain as if trying to absorb the pattern. He still hadn't looked up. "It was dark, and I was falling... And that was strange, but not really... scary..." More words, definitely a step in the right direction. "But when I reached the bottom, there were all these... black... things waiting, and they surrounded me and came closer, and closer..."

Terra folded his arms across his chest. "Black things? What did they look like?"

"Just... black... with yellow eyes. They glowed, and it was dark, so all I could see were all these eyes around me and the shadows shifting like they were alive."

"Sounds pretty bad." He deliberately kept his tone even. Terra wasn't good at faking emotions, and trying to be too concerned struck him as a bad idea somehow. Ven was hurt, yes, but he wasn't broken - maybe the three of them hadn't been pushing him quite hard enough, had been too gentle. Being allowed to run away from one's fears only made them fester, as he'd found out for himself more than once. At the very least, the longer the boy spoke without interruption, without someone spoonfeeding him the answers, the steadier his voice became, although it still didn't gain any volume.

Ven took a deep breath. "That part was... bad, but... it wasn't the worst. It was scary, but a scary I could deal with. But then they all began to melt, and there was this sea of black shadow around me, and it began to change, making shapes and faces and showing me... terrible things... places they destroyed, people they... they killed... _how_ they did it... worlds going d-dark-"

"It's okay, Ven, it's okay." Terra reached over as Ven began to shake, curling up on himself and reaching down to hold onto his feet. The older boy shifted his position to sit next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder in the only gesture of comfort he would allow most days. "Those things aren't gonna happen, you know it. Me and Aqua and the Masters, we're all working to make sure that never happens. No worlds are gonna go out on our watch, you got me? No one's going to die. We've got our Keyblades, we'll protect-"

Terra realized how stupid he'd been to say the K-word when Ven flinched at that so hard that his entire body practically spasmed under Terra's hand. _Idiot, you _know _how he reacts to that!_ He took his hand away from Ven's shoulder, then tentatively put it back when the shaking didn't stop and the younger boy curled in on himself even more. "Ven...?"

"The... It... It _came_-" he gasped, trembling under Terra's fingers. "After- after everything else, it was _there_, and it came for me-"

"What, Ven? What was there?"

"The... K... Ch... What... what you all have..."

"...A Ke-" He cut himself off quickly as another spasm rocked Ven's body. "Okay, I won't say it - but you don't have to be afraid of them, you know. They're just a tool; we decide what happens with them."

"Not this one," Ven whispered in such a low volume that Terra had to strain to hear. "This one knows... it can tell... it's horrible and it shouldn't exist and _it came for me_. It wants _me_. All the shadows, all the b-blood, and it m-made itself right there in front of me, and it _looked_ at me and I knew it was looking _for_ me. And then- it f-flew straight at me and s-stabbed me right in the heart..." Terra remained quiet, waiting for Ven to continue. When he did, his voice was a little steadier, and a little louder once more "It hurt so much, it woke me up. And I had to get out of the room and find someone..."

He couldn't think of anything to say for a moment, but then Terra lightly squeezed Ven's shoulder in a small attempt to reassure him. "Well I'd say I'm someome. Feel any better now?"

"Y-Yeah... and n-no." Ven continued before Terra could ask him what that meant. "Saying it... saying it all out loud makes me realize it's j-just a dream, you know. B-But I know something in it's real - I just don't know _what_. And whatever it is, it scares me to death."

Terra didn't doubt that; Ven's face was paler than it should have been, even in the moonlight, and on closer inspection it appeared too thin. There was barely a hint of the baby fat that every other eleven-year-old boy he'd ever seen, including himself, had sported, and he suddenly wondered how much Ven had been eating since he woke up. _Probably not enough. No wonder he always seems worn out._

"...I'll tell you what, Ven," Terra said, startling the boy into looking up about halfway. "You ever get any other dreams like this, you come see me. I don't mind talking you through them."

A slightly skeptical expression crossed Ven's face. "In the middle of the night?"

"That's right."

"Any night?"

"Sure, if you need it."

"...Doesn't Aqua already give you a hard enough time about waking up in the morning?"

Terra couldn't help a laugh escaping; the kid had a point. "Probably, but I think she'll lay off for this. We all want you to get better, Ven, and if this helps, then no one'll have a problem with it."

"O-Okay..." His head tilted down again, and Terra frantically reached for something, anything, to keep him looking up. Face down was obviously frightened Ven mode of operation; he needed to get the boy to switch gears into something else again. "Do you think one day you'll be able to join us for apprentice training?"

Ven froze again, and Terra nearly kicked himself. _Way to go, even if you didn't say the word!_ But the freeze lasted not nearly as long as he expected, and Ven broke it in a way he wouldn't have dared imagine. The blond let go of the foot in his right hand, held it out in front of him, and closed his eyes.

With a _fwaash_ he heard several times a day every day of his life, a Keyblade appeared in Ven's hand.

Terra couldn't help a gasp escaping his mouth; he was one hundred percent certain that neither Master Eraqus nor Aqua had seen this yet. Ven's hand was tight around the grip, knuckles almost white, but he wasn't letting go. The Keyblade was strange to him, being neither bulky like his nor graceful like Aqua's. _Somewhere inbetween, so he should be between us in capabilities..._ The weapon also possessed odd curves that looked to possibly make it more aerodynamic, and a thick guardpiece to protect the wielder's hand. Strangest of all, Ven held the weapon in what seemed to Terra to be a completely unorthodox grip, turning it around completely so it would stick out behind him rather than in front like every other Keyblade he'd yet seen. Whether that grip would work or not, he didn't know, but Ven certainly positioned it like he knew how to use it to strike.

All Terra's doubts as to Ven's capability disappeared in the ten seconds Ven kept his blade summoned before dismissing it and letting his hand fall to his lap. No one who hadn't been granted the power by a Master and deemed worthy by the power itself could hold on to a Keyblade for even half a second. Ven had to have been chosen, probably by Master Xehanort, for some reason yet unknown.

"I have it... I know I have it too, just like you do." Unlike before, his voice was still quiet, but this time it was absolutely steady. "I don't know why I do, or why the thought of them scares me so much. But part of it doesn't - part of me knows what they stand for is good, and right, and fair. They stand for justice, and protection, and safety. They were made to help the worlds, and all the people in them. But that type of power is so easy to misuse. It's so easy to get it and let it all just go to your head, think you can't be wrong, ever, and never stop to think about _why_ you're doing what you're doing. And the thought of doing that myself - or you, or Aqua, or the Master - frightens me more than anything. You all are good people, I can tell, and I don't want to see any of you lose yourselves like that. I don't want to fall to it, or see any of you fall to it - and I'm afraid that it'll happen one day."

His speech finished, Ven fell quiet, leaving Terra to stare at him in silence. Of all the things he expected from the boy, that might have been the last - sheer honesty and maturity, selflessness and generosity. He'd never felt as inadequate as he did right at that moment, sitting on his floor in the middle of the night next to a boy five years younger than him who'd just been through some sort of hell and who still had the strength of heart to wish to save others from megalomaniacal creeps bent on destruction. Ven still wasn't looking at him, so Terra took a risk and closed his eyes, widening his perception again and putting his all into seeking out that sense that often proved elusive to him. Aqua was proving much better than him at this in their lessons, but he could still do it...

A blaze of white smashed into Terra's mind as he caught the thread of what he was reaching for and he quickly backed away, throwing up a mental "hand" to shield himself reflexively. The shining light dimmed as he dialed it back down to tolerable levels, opening his real eyes to briefly catch a flash of white around the still form of Ventus.

_No wonder Master Xehanort found him - he's so _pure_. How did he survive out in the worlds without any darkness at all?_

"Ven..." he said tentatively, not at all sure where to start but knowing he had to say something. "I promise," he began, trying to put as much reassurance as he could into his voice, "as long as I'm capable of it, I won't let you fall. I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe - you've been through enough as it is, you don't need to take on any more of the burden than you can hold. All you have to do is stay with us and learn the same things we are. Then we can protect each other, and all the worlds, together. We'll be able to beat anything. I promise."

Silence descended again as Terra came to the end of his own clumsy speech, but he knew better than to break it. Ven needed time to absorb his words and decide whether or not he trusted them; Terra had asked for quite a lot, after all. There wasn't any reason for Ven to not trust them, but being fair Terra had to admit that there wasn't much reason that he _should_, either. Whatever had happened to him had to do with Keyblades, and they all possessed them; potentially, they could all hurt him in the same way. Not that they would, but Ven didn't know them yet - he had to allow himself to open up to their makeshift little family, allow himself to develop bonds again. They wouldn't hurt him - he had to trust them not to.

"...You'll do anything to keep me safe?" the boy asked, almost in a whisper.

"Anything," Terra replied immediately. "I'd even face the Masters themselves if I had to."

"...Why? You don't know me..."

His heart broke just a little with those words. "I know enough about you. Whatever you went through was bad and you don't need to go through anything like that again. I don't need to know the specifics; I just know that it's true. And I swear on my Keyblade that I'll do anything I have to to keep you safe."

Something he said must have finally reached Ven, because the next thing he knew there was a shock of blond hair in his eyes and a couple of arms that were a shade too thin around his neck. The hug startled Terra at first, but after a second he gave in and folded one of his own arms around the younger boy, once again trying to give him reassurance without speaking. It seemed to work well enough, because though Terra could swear he felt a small wet patch on his shoulder and a few more slight shudders from the smaller body, Ven seemed to pull himself together decently well. After several moments he pulled back, sniffing a bit and blinking his eyes rapidly (which Terra chose to ignore), and actually met his eyes. "Thanks... I'm sorry."

Terra smiled, reaching up to ruffle Ven's mop of hair and making it even messier than it already had been. "Don't worry about it. Think you can make it back to your room all right?"

"...Do you think I could stay here tonight?" The hope in Ven's voice was impossible to ignore, and though Terra wanted to put his foot down, he found that it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a bucket: an eternally hopeless proposition.

"...Okay, but I get up earlier than you do," he warned.

Ven's expression visibly brightened, coming the closest Terra had so far seen to an actual smile. "That's okay! I... I kind of wake up early most days and don't come out for awhile." He raised a hand to the back of his head, a bit sheepishly. "I guess I better get used to it if I'm going to train some day, right?"

"That's the spirit." He couldn't keep from smiling again and pushed himself to his feet once more. "Okay, just let me shut the window-"

"Don't!" Ven looked shocked at his outburst for a moment, then became even more sheepish when Terra gave him a questioning look. "I just... sleep better with it open. I opened that when I came in here."

"...I _knew_ I shut that before I fell asleep."

Terra could _almost_ swear that Ven muffled a laugh at that.

"Come on, let's get to sleep. I swear morning comes earlier every day," Terra groaned, shaking his head as he sat down on his bed again.

"It does, since the days get longer as we get closer to-"

"You know what I mean." He grabbed his pillow, preparing to bap Ven in the head with it, but was prevented from reaching his goal by the fact that Ven seemed to have disappeared completely. "All right, where'd you go?"

His voice was a little muffled as he answered. "Down here."

Terra slid off the bed again, still holding the pillow, to kneel on the floor - only to find that Ven had pulled himself back under his bed, for reasons that probably made no sense. Terra didn't even bother to hide the flat look he gave the younger boy. "What're you doing under there?"

"Umm... going to sleep?"

"Right, and your back is going to hate you tomorrow. Come out, we can share for one night. Long as you don't have cold feet that is."

A vague image of Ven's face was about the only thing that Terra could see, but he could almost swear he saw an apprehensive expression on the little that was visible. "A-Are you sure?"

"Positive," he said, putting as much certainty into the word as he could. "Now get out of there before I grab an ankle and drag you out."

It took another solid thirty seconds, but eventually Ven scooted out from under the bed, having picked up a few more dust bunnies along the way. By the time he was standing, Terra had already climbed into his bed and settled himself closer to the wall than he normally did, leaving the entire right half free for Ven. The blond took a second to pick off the lint and dust that he could see, then slowly climbed in behind him. Terra felt the mattress shift under his lesser weight as he tried to find a comfortable position in the unfamiliar bed, eventually balling himself up around his feet as he pulled the blankets up to his chin. Once he seemed to be settled, Terra turned over himself, wanting to make sure he was all right, but also with a question in mind. "Hey, Ven."

"Yeah?" He already sounded half-asleep.

"Why'd you come to me and not Aqua? She's a lot better at the feelings and fears stuff."

For a few moments Ven was silent, and Terra began to suspect that he'd fallen asleep even as he asked his question. But then the other boy's voice drifted back to him, even sleepier but still clear enough to be understandable.

"She's really nice, but so are you. And she's a _girl_."

Terra chuckled quietly, then sighed and pulled the blankets up more comfortably over his shoulder. "Yeah... she is."

"...Terra?"

"What is it?"

Instead of answering right away, Ven shifted his position again, turning onto his other side and nestling in against Terra's chest. With anyone else Terra would have had an apoplexy, but for some reason, with this broken kid, it was all right. It wasn't indecent, it wasn't a come-on, it was just... being there for someone, being something they could rely on. Just like he'd promised. Terra couldn't help but smile, settling an arm over Ven to show that he didn't mind this at all.

"Thanks," Ven breathed, settling into sleep.

"No problem."


End file.
